draws on the mirth
grows uproarious; improvisations abound. Pulcinello attracts laughing
crowds. The bagpipes strike with their ear-piercing sounds, and arise
shrill above the universal din. Fireworks are let off at every street
corner, flaming torches carried in procession parade the streets;
rockets rise in the air, coloured lamps are hung over doorways, and in
the midst of the blaze of light the church bells announce the midnight
Mass, and the crowd leave the fair and the streets, and on bended knee
are worshipping."

[Illustration: Luis de Vargas 1502-1568 Seville Cathedral]

CHRISTMAS IN SPAIN.

Spain in winter must be divided into Spain the frigid and Spain the
semi-tropic; for while snow lies a foot deep at Christmas in the
north, in the south the sun is shining brightly, and flowers of spring
are peeping out, and a nosegay of heliotrope and open-air geraniums is
the Christmas-holly and mistletoe of Andalusia. There is no chill in
the air, there is no frost on the window-pane.

When Christmas Eve comes the two days' holiday commences. At twelve
the labourers leave their work, repair home, and dress in their best.
Then the shops are all ablaze with lights, ribbons and streamers, with
tempting fare of sweets and sausages, with red and yellow serge to
make warm petticoats; with cymbals, drums, and _zambombas_. The chief
sweetmeats, peculiar to Christmas, and bought alike by rich and poor,
are the various kinds of preserved fruits, incrusted with sugar, and
the famous _turrni_. This last, which is of four kinds, and may be
called in English phraseology, "almond rock," is brought to your door,
and buy it you must. A coarse kind is sold to the poor at a cheap
rate. Other comestibles, peculiar to Christmas, are almond soup,
truffled turkey, roasted chestnuts, and nuts of every sort.

Before the _Noche-buena_, or Christmas Eve, however, one or two good
deeds have been done by the civil and military authorities. On the
twenty-third or twenty-fourth the custom is for the military governor
to visit all the soldier prisoners, in company with their respective
defensores, or advocates; and, _de officio_, there and then, he
liberates all who are in gaol for light offences. This plan is also
pursued in the civil prisons; and thus a beautiful custom is kept up
in classic, romantic, Old-world Spain, and a ray of hope enters into
and illuminates even the bitter darkness of a Spanish prisoners' den.

It is Christmas Eve. Th